Quadro QRS 250G
"Detector"

"If it works, I think it could be a
real good tool and deterrent in our school system," said one high-school principal.
Gastonia
Gazette, April 6, 1995

The Quadro QRS 250G
"Detector" (the Quadro Tracker) is a plastic box with an antenna which was
sold by Quadro Corp of Harleyville, South Carolina, as a detector of just about anything:
drugs, weapons, golf balls, even lost coon dogs. Wade Quattlebaum's invention sold for
about $1,000 each. Some schools and government agencies spent as much as $8,000 for the
device which turns out to be good only at detecting suckers who can be easily parted with
other people's money (i.e., our taxpayer dollars). Sandia Labs of Albuquerque, New Mexico,
took one apart and discovered that there is nothing inside. It probably costs about $2 to
make. For their trouble, Sandia labs was threatened with a lawsuit by Quadro. Quadro did
not threaten to sue the FBI, however, when its tests determined that the Quadro Tracker
was incapable of detecting anything. According to the FBI, the device was little more than
a piece of plastic. Quadro may have had nothing in their Tracker but they certainly had
chutzpah in their marketing: the FBI was one of their target markets.

On January 19, 1996, the FBI Economic Crimes unit seized the merchandise and records of
the Quadro Corporation and arrested its officers. In April, 1996, a federal judge issued a
permanent injunction against Quadro Corp, which was convicted of engaging in a mail and
wire scheme to defraud customers, under statutes 18 U.S.C. 1341 and 1343. In court
it was pointed out that the Quadro Detector had been carefully examined and that no
"inductors, conductors, or oscillators" were found, though Quadro advertised
those as the working parts of its "secret technology." Quadro claimed that
theirs were not "ordinary" inductors, conductors, or oscillators. Theirs are of
an advanced sort not yet known to "regular science."

The FBI sent out a bulletin to their branches warning that "A device marketed to
law enforcement agencies nationwide, the Quadro Tracker...is a fraud. All agencies should
immediately cease using the device...." Even so, several law enforcement officers, as
well as several school principals, still swear by their QRS 250G Detectors.

How could such smart people be so easily deceived? Perhaps it was the technical
sounding literature sent out by Quadro Corp. Quadro claimed that the device uses
"tuned frequency chips" to hone in on its target:

The frequency chip is oscillated by static electricity produced by the body [of
the user] inhaling and exhaling gases into and out of the lung cavity. This static
electricity is propagated on the surface of the body to the tracker which utilizes the
charge to oscillate the chip....[A]ll matter contains exact molecular frequencies. When a
magnetic field is created by a contained electrically charged body moving through space at
a perpendicular angle moving to its direction, and that field is brought into alignment
with another exact field, resonating at the identical frequency modulation, then both
objects attract, just as two bodies are attracted toward each other in a gravitational
field.

Most purchasing agents would be ignorant of electrical engineering and
would not know that the above gobbledygook is gibberish.

Perhaps potential buyers were impressed by the names of the people who endorsed the
device:

Any intelligent investigator should know that testimonials
are not scientific evidence. Such testimony should be considered worthless when
considering the purchase of allegedly high-tech commercial products.

James Randi, in one of his Hotline reports, noted that he had heard from Interquest
Group, Inc., Vice President Michael Ferdinand. Interquest, says Randi, is "a
reputable and well-known company which train dogs for use in contraband detection."
Their endorsement of the Quadro Detector quoted them as saying

"Using the Quadro as a stand-alone unit certainly locates the drugs..."

and

"Since I discovered the Quadro unit, I have introduced it into my K-9
teams with great effect. In fact, I am now helping schools to acquire their own
units..."

Randi continues:

But after Interquest personnel attended the mandatory training session in Harleyville,
S.C., and had the device examined by Southwest Research Institute (SRI) in San Antonio,
Texas, the tune changed. Says Ferdinand now:

We, too, fell victims to the hustle of the 'Quadro Tracker'.... we now recognize that
the entire training mission was staged.... based upon the conclusions of [the SRI] report
and our inability to achieve any form of consistent results with the product, we
disassociated our company from the Quadro Corporation. At present, we remain some $10,000
in the hole as a result of our encounter with the Quadro Corporation as well as sustaining
a certain degree of damage to our otherwise flawless reputation....

The SRI lab report stated in its conclusion that:

the tracker is not functional and the operating principle suggested by the manufacturer
is scientifically highly questionable at the very least. Both analyses support the
suspicion that the tracker is a fake device.

SRI tested the two "Training Samples" sold to Interquest with the Quadro, and
found nothing inside but "epoxied scrambled dead ants."

One of the other people listed in the Quadro list of testimonials denies he ever said
what they say he did. Corporal Billy Johnson, a K-9 officer with the North Charleston
police department, was quoted by Quadro as saying, "There is no doubt that the Quadro
Tracker can do everything the dogs can do, and from a much greater distance."
Corporal Johnson told Randi that he never said any such thing and that his department did
not purchase the Quadro Detector.

Randi also heard from the boss of Don Plybon, the U.S. Customs agent listed as
endorsing the Quadro toy. Writes Randi:

Quadro had published a quotation from Plybon in which he related an account of a
"positive for gunpowder alert" that the stick gave him when pointed at a Russian
plane at Charleston, SC, airport. The customs agent, said the Quadro ad, decided that
"the plane was loaded with used guns." But when they then unloaded the cargo and
searched the plane, they found nothing. So, says the ad, they "checked the grease on
the ramp" and decided that the Quadro couldn't be wrong, that there must have been
"something in the grease" that made it "alert." What really happened?
Gee, could it be that the customs agent made a boo-boo, because he was naive enough to
think that the thing actually worked? Why else would his boss call me and forbid me to
write to agent Plybon any more? And where does he get the colossal nerve to forbid me to
do anything? I made my opinion quite clear to him, I assure you. When the boss has to call
me to tell me to stop challenging his employee, I begin to wonder... In any case, Quadro
has been warned to stop using agent Plybon's name in the advertising they can no longer
send out.

Quadro may be closed down but there are others waiting in the wings to surpass even
Quadro's wildest claims. DielectroKinetic
Laboratories (DKL) brought out its LifeGuard, with models ranging from
$6,000 to $14,000. DKL claimed its device could identify a human heartbeat
500 yards away, through concrete, earth, or water. The DKL LifeGuard was
tested by Sandia
Labs in April, 1998. The device failed to perform any better than
expected by chance. In October 1998 Sandia took a DKL LifeGuard apart and
found that the electronic
components could not possibly function as advertised.

Finally, there is the Super-Sensor Dowsing Rod which can be
ordered from Psi-Tronics Visions. Here is what
Psi-Tronics says you can do with their device:

You can dowse the past, present or future. Future
events are subject to the laws of probability and free will so it doesn't
always work for the lottery. But in other uses you are limited only by
your imagination. Locate underground water, pipes, minerals, oil, etc.
Locate fish and game animals, or missing persons. I know people who use it
to predict the stock market, marketing trends, business opportunities, and
to isolate production problems. I know mechanics who dowse to determine
mechanical problems in cars, and other machinery and maintenance workers
who use dowsing to find underground water lines, leaks, and electrical
problems. Professional health workers, chiropractors, dieticians, and
people who diagnose illness use dowsing to check their findings. Holistic
healers and herbalists use it to prescribe vitamins. In the home, use it
to find lost articles and to make decisions. Dowse the telephone book to
find a number or the yellow pages to determine who will serve you the
best. Check up on your kids to see if they are all right. Check to see if
the weather will be good, and what clothes you should wear.

How many public agencies will spend taxpayer money on this magical dowser or
other equally useless devices marketed with equally preposterous claims?